"What you're seeing is we started a new game; what inning isn't important," he said. " We've lived in a declining interest rate environment since 1981. We've declined about as much as we can, but now we're going on the other side of that. So the saying we all use that 'past performance isn't indicative of future results' I think is absolutely true. We're entering into a new game versus an inning in the old game.

"And in the new game, it depends on your timeframe," he added. "I define the new game as being very slow global growth. And your classic asset classes won't be doing what they did before. You'll see very low equity appreciation over the next five to 10 years, or maybe significantly longer as we work throught this deleveraging that's happening on the debt side. At the same time, you're not going to get the returns or the safety that you've gotten historically from this continually declining [interest rate] period from the fixed-income side."

The solution? 

"We have to look at a whole new set of investments," Rivkin said. "By the way, I hate the word 'alternatives' because we're not talking alternatives here. We're talking about equity and fixed-income variations, and they're not alternative because the definition of alternative is something outside of the norm. This [so-called alternative and liquid alternative products] is really becoming the norm. But you have to understand we're in a different game now, and we're going to have to look for different ways to play ball."

As for how to invest in this environment, Rivkin said the short-term play is to follow the money, which means follow the QE and its backdrop of asset inflation. The longer-term view means looking at places such as South America and Mexico, along with Asia ex-China and Japan.  

The third panelist, Ali Motamed, portfolio manager at Boston Partners, waved the yellow caution flag for investors.

"I do think the markets are exhuberant right now," he said. "I think QE has pushed people toward equities because when they look out over the near-term that's the only place they see returns coming from. I think the problem is that people's durations are short-sighted; they're looking at the next 12 months and running while looking at their feet. But if you look at all of these things going on and at market multiples, there are a lot of risks out there."

And one of those risks is the potential impact of rising interest rates.

"People look at rate moves of 50 to 100 basis points," Motamed said. "The initial rate moves might not be a big deal, but when you look at a 100 basis point rate hike that implies about a 15 percent to 18 percent increase in financing costs. Put in those terms, that takes M&A out of the game and share repurchases out of the game. So I think investors are being exhuberant, and I think the risks out there are massive. When you look out over a two- to three-year horizon, I think more caution is warranted."